Posted
by
Zonk
on Sunday November 12, 2006 @12:24AM
from the nothing-nice-to-say dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku is running an article prompted by an email from a foreign student in Japan. The reader unveils the sad reality of the modern gaming industry. Japanese businessmen made ample use of homeless people and Chinese nationals to obtain PS3s for re-sale. There was also a large amount of pushing and shoving, some fights, and almost no police presence at the most crowded stores." From the article: "Based on my observations of the first twenty PS3s sold at Bic Camera, they were all purchased by Chinese nationals, none of whom bought any software. After making their purchase, television crews asked for interviews but all were declined. These temporary owners of PS3s would then make their way down the street where their bosses waited. After several minutes, a dozen PS3s were rounded up, as their Japanese business manager paid out cash to those who waited in line for them. I witnessed a homeless-looking Chinese man, in his sixties or seventies get paid 20,000 yen for his services and was then sent away."Update: 11/12 05:40 GMT by Z: You're right. Sony only shares a portion of the blame here. Offsides on my part.

Why is Sony getting blamed here? -- Definitely insightful since it really is a media beat-up.

In any limited supply launch and it does not have to be a console you are always going to get people who will take advantage of the situation. Normally we call these people "scalpers" and some not so nice names as well, but in reality it is supply and demand. Basically there are people who will pay ridicules prices for something because they are normally too lazy to stand in-line and this is what these people are counting on.

To blame Sony for this is just plain stupid. If people did not want this machine then it would not sell and we know that is not true. What is actually good for Sony here is the fact that the IMHO "idiot" who will pay well over the market rate will most likely have the money to pay for games which is how Games Manufacturers makes money.

I think we can call this a "win" (queue sitter US$170), "win" (scalper US$???? - US$170), "win and loose" (the idiot who buys US$????) and "win" (games - approx US$30 to US$60) and "win" (Sony - percentage of games sold).

Disclaimer. It is my opinion that a person who buys a product way over the its market rate is either very wealthy and an idiot or just a plain idiot. Still without these people scalpers would not exist.

Disclaimer. It is my opinion that a person who buys a product way over the its market rate is either very wealthy and an idiot or just a plain idiot. Still without these people scalpers would not exist.

Not always. They (evidenced by paying $1500+ as other/.ers cited), have very high reservation prices (that is the max price they are willing to pay). If you make the rough equivalent of $500/hour (ask about rates at your local corporate law firm if you don't believe that number), then standing in line for 4 hours would be worth $2000 of opportunity cost to you. Paying $1500 for the scalped version is a savings of about $1100 for this hypothetical person ($2000 opportunity cost + $600 console price) - $1500. Or they could wait for demand to settle down and buy it later, but then there is an opportunity cost of waiting (in lost gaming time / bragging rights), which they price at over $900 ($1500 scalper price - $600 retail price).

Not saying this applies to most people, just people with insane amounts of either money or utility derived from gaming. Still, it is perfectly possible for a rational person to buy a scalped console, and really have that be the best value for them.

More likely, that $500/hr rate is a billed-out rate, which us consumers / plebs / potential litigants pay. Unless it's their own practice (let's say it's not), a portion of that will return to the lawyer as salary (... pfff, about $75-100/hr, he said sticking a finger in the air and guessing), with the rest going to the law firm itself to pay for legal pads, crayons, mind control devices and dinner parties for the partners.

The law firm would in theory lose $500/hr for each potentially billable hour the th

Honestly, Sony should sell those PS3s at the price people are actually willing to pay, i.e. much more than retail, instead of failing miserably to prevent anarchy. Setting the correct price, from an economics point of view, would be best done by auction. This leads us to the conclusion that Sony should cut out the middlemen by EBaying the first few batches of PS3s themselves.Unfortunately it won't happen because Sony would probably be crucified by the media for allowing people to pay as much as they want

Which ironically results in them ending up on EBay anyway, sold to the highest-bidding rich guy.... and then Sony gets blamed anyway by the morons like Zonk who claim that the profiteering is somehow Sony's fault.

Because Sony should release more than a handful of consoles. If they haven't produced enough to do a proper release that doesn't create artificial over-demand, they shouldn't release. It's called corporate responsibility.

F.U.D.

If Sony produced enough then the same poster will whine about it being released a few months later than it should, and end off with a "Think of the eBay resellers!!!!!111".

If anything blame capitalism, that's right. If the whole world were communist, free standard issued Mao Ze Dong PS3 for each family! No such issues!

The Cell chip is expensive and difficult to manufacture. (Although each cell die has 7 cores, 8 are manufactured on each die in the expectation that one will fail. Post-manufacture testing finds the broken core and disables it, finds no broken cores and disables one anyway, or finds the whole chip ruined and scraps it.) That, and the expensive Blu-Ray drives are difficult to make, too.

Well we know there are 1827 PS3's for sale but how many are from Japan? If they are solely from the Japanese launch then this is approx 2.5% of sales (assuming 80,000). Not a huge amount but then judging the Xbox360 launch the costs are about on par. It is going to be interesting to see if this number increases when the US 17th Nov 2006 release occurs.

State run farms in Russia, China, Cuba, and Venezuela left/leave people starving

I think you need to go back to FUD school. People in Cuba aren't exactly starving, and Chavez was elected president (twice, in fact) in a democratic election. There was an attempted coup d'etat against Chavez - which was prevented by the people of Venezuela! Meanwhile, lots of people in the USA still don't have health care. But at least they aren't w

Can't really decide which poster to agree with...on one hand the PS3 was so costly to develop and manufacture that it isn't a surprise it's so expensive and running out and I don't think it was some sort of Big Sony Conspiracy...on the other hand I don't like replying to these types of posts and tacitly endorsing the offtopic, pro-capitalist rants that always get modded +3, 4, 5 Insightful just because the people with Modpoints happen to agree politically despite the fact that the post has nothing to do wit

There is nothing wrong with capitalism: supply and demand, opportunism, etc... I saw PS3s go for $2400 on e-bay. The people who bought them were happy (and could afford them), the people who sold them were happy, Sony is happy, the Chinese who stood on line and got 20000 yen for their trouble are happy. So what's the problem? I suppose I'm a little unhappy because I can't afford $2400 for a game console, and I can't get one for $600 before Christmas, but, to tell the truth, I wouldn't spend $600 for a game console anyway. I just got my kid "MLB The show" (for the PS2) for his birthday and he was ecstatic. I'm pretty sure he'll be content with the PS2 for a while until there's some "gotta-have" game that's on the PS3. By that time I'll probably be able to pick one up for $200 (while the 'latest-greatest' will be going for mega-bucks on e-bay), and I'll be happy. Now some people might say that the rich are getting richer (those who can buy up a bunch of $600 PS3s and resell them), but let's face it, the rich are going to get richer anyway, and in capitalism some of the poor get richer, and some of the middle-class get richer, too. So everyone is happier...

Hey man. People DO starve in Cuba. It's a fact. It's not all the time, but even when there's no widespread famine, cuban diet is usually low in proteins and carbo. People wait in lines for hours to get a small piece of meat. I am from Brasil, and had a lot of friends who studied in Cuba, and all of them never denied that. Of course, they blame the US embargo (strangely enough, they say that our problems in Brasil are because we DO trade with the US, go figure!)
Even if you were right, and you are not, you

While I agree that greed is not an "admirable" trait, I have to wonder who you and the GP think is being exploited? Certainly not the homeless person who got paid ~$170 for his troubles. The only one I think that could meet the qualifications are the people buying these consoles from the Japanese equivalent of ebay for outrageous sums of money; but if you can afford to spend thousands of dollars on ebayed consoles, then it's a bit of a stretch to say you're being exploited. The only ones being wronged here

Actually... one could quite easily argue that there is nothing wrong here and that this is a perfect example of a free market working.

Person A is willing to spend X dollars on a system, but not the time waiting in line.Person B is willing to spend the time waiting in line to buy a system at Y to sell for X.End result: both parties satisfied.

The only flaw is that Sony should be taking the profit for this instead of letting third parties do it. Imagine if they used an auction-like system (hey, if google ipo can do it) then the people who value the PS3 most get one, and sony keeps all the profits.

I thought that would be a good idea, but it would really alienate the fanbase, espescially since it reeks of mafioso tactics, since Sony could artificially retrict the supply to create a higher price.

I think the best solution would be one like the Gamespot solution of reserving Xbox 360s for extremely expensive (and profitable) bundles. You could filter the people without money, and still provide value other than just the value of having one of the limited amount of consoles.

The only flaw is that Sony should be taking the profit for this instead of letting third parties do it. Imagine if they used an auction-like system (hey, if google ipo can do it) then the people who value the PS3 most get one, and sony keeps all the profits.

I always thought it would be smart and nice for items with high demand on launch and not enough supply to do something like what you suggested. Auction the items off to the highest bidders. However, only take a cut of what the retail price will be and do

The end users who buy from these middlemen are *every bit* as guilty as Sony or the middlemen.

Which is to say, guilty of exactly nothing. Guilty of giving a little bit of paying work to homeless people. Anybody thought to ask the homeless people what they thought of the deal? No that would make too much sense.

What a stupid troll article, the only interesting thing is how many responders took the bait uncritically.

Seriously, this story is screwed up, but no one seems to realize why. Sony launches the PS3, much later than they initially hoped, and with too few units to really call it a proper launch. The scarcity drives up demand, which drives up the price... which generates artificial demand in the form of middlemen who hire homeless people to snatch them up at launch.

This should strike you as wrong somehow.

I think everyone can be forgiven for not being able to quite put their finger on why, exactly. Zonk's kneejerk was to blame Sony for something, but what are they doing? Well, they're making the same mistake they made with the PS2 (i.e. launching before they can satisfy demand), but clearly by the state of the PS2 it wasn't the kind of mistake that kills a product... on the contrary, it generates artificial "SOLD OUT" hype.

And how about these greedy middlemen? Well, scalpers are jerks, they make it harder for people who actually want to play a PS3 to get one at a reasonable price; they actually generate demand that might not be there if they weren't snatching up units, which in turn drives the hype machine. But they're giving homeless people money, so even though we'll be cursing their names come Christmas, it's hard to fault them in this story.

And no one is going to tell the homeless guy to "get a real job." Clearly they've done no wrong here.

So we squabble back and forth over just how much Sony is "at fault" and whether there's anything to be upset about over capitalistic impulses of scalping businessmen, Sony Nintendo Microsoft flamewars, on and on and on. But you can't help feeling like something is wrong here...

Because there is. The PlayStation 3 is a toy! It's Tickle-Me-Elmo, Cabbage Patch Dolls, whatever. As long as you want to buy one, Sony is happy to sell you one... heck, even if you don't want one. No one who can afford the PS3's retail value will miss out! They're not a limited run, heck, the first batch will probably be the lowest quality batch released. But there is this sense of urgency, this sense of "must have now" whether it's for spoiled, demanding brats or some misguided need to be on the cutting edge of technology and play every game for every system the day it comes out... this need for the next big toy, now. Is Sony to blame? Sure, them and every other luxury-peddling company in the world.

Imagine how much better off these homeless guys would be if, instead of spending $2000 on a PS3, you waited until March--that's three and a half months--and gave $1000 to charity. You'd have saved $400 over rough eBay price. And you'd be a whopping three months behind on the latest games.

I'm not going to say that's some kind of ethical duty. I like my video games. I see no need to preach; every $50 game I buy is $50 I could give to charity or what have you, I know. But we're talking about paying middlemen a thousand plus dollars for an opportunity to have a particular luxury three months before everyone else, and that's just messed up no matter what luxury we're talking about. The story is messed up, because our materialism, especially near Christmas, has become an absolute farce. I'm glad Zonk posted the story, blaming Sony was the wrong reaction, but he recognized that something was just wrong about the story.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but I can't help but feel that you're deliberately missing the point. Where is the harm? Well, clearly there is no economic harm. I did my best to show that no one involved in the total transaction has violated any capitalistic norms. Sony, the scalpers, the homeless guys, even the eBay purchasers who "WANT IT NOW," no money is being compelled to change hands.

What I am trying to note is why the story is so deeply distasteful despite the fact that no one involved is really

Artificial scarcity? They're having slow production. You think they only WANT to have this many units for the Japan and US launch, and push the Europe launch back so far? When Nintendo is launching a highly-awaited product at the same time?

This is not Sony's fault in the least, and it REALLY shows how anti-Sony these boards are with people actually claiming that it is.

Heaven forbid we blame the scalpers... or the people willing to buy a PS3 at a premium from the scalpers. Why would we do that when there is a giant corporation we can blame for the ills of society? Damn that holiday season, we are helpless against the dynamic duo: Christmas and Sony. Won't somebody think of the children (especially those who will be deprived of a PS3 this christmas?)

Why blame anybody? Is this food or another necessity that we are talking about? Will people die to the lack of PS3s?Seriously, I want to laugh at the jackasses who don't have the patience to wait 2 months (mid to end January) to get one at a reasonable price or perhaps even better, at the "scalpers" who will overestimate demand and be left hanging.

If the "scalpers" make money, more power to them, I really don't care that much. The PS3 isn't like a concert, it'll be back again soon enough and everybody ca

I don't see much of a problem here. The people who purchased had the money, theirs or not they should get the product. If I can afford dozens of PS3s and can afford to pay dozens of bums to stand in line and buy them, then I'll get dozens of PS3s. How can their be a law against that in a country that regards itself as free (Japan)?

Let's take a look at entities involved:A - Sony and the stores who want to sell the PS3 at RRP.B - Homeless people who need money and buy the PS3 at RRP only to sell it again for more.C - Fat kid who can't wait a couple more weeks for the PS3 and as such is willing to pay more for it.

"Scalping" is just another word for "wahhh... I didn't get a cheap one on launch day!"

There's not really any practical way of preventing scalping is there?- float the price high enough to stifle demand (almost there already!)- somehow make a PS3 un-transferrable (can you imagine the screams?)- magically come up with more PS3s- wait until the factories are running full-bore before starting to release any PS3s

Now, concert and sport ticket scalping is another story, but not I think relevant here.

Anyhow IMO blaming Sony for this -- or even really considering it to be a problem -- is pretty mistaken.Some homeless guys don't get to play with their new PS3s... I'm crying my little heart out here.

1. Floating the price higher to reduce demand is an effective way to prevent "scalping". If it's not working, the price just hasn't been raised enough. Didn't we learn anything in high school? If supply can't meet demand, raise the price until it does!

1. Floating the price higher to reduce demand is an effective way to prevent "scalping". If it's not working, the price just hasn't been raised enough.

That would most likely backfire. If you raised the price enough to match what the early adopters (a very small market) will pay - it would totally kill the buzz, and turn the majority of the market off your product - even if you lowered prices later. End result, raising the price, even if only temporarily, results in less profit. Worst case, your company's n

You know, so you don't have huge crowds like this? Charge a premium to those that want to pick it up the day it's released. No wonder Sony is loosing so much money. If there is that much demand for their product, why aren't they charging more?

Because even as it is, the price of the PS3 is 80% of the reason its reputation went to hell. Sony sucks, but it doesn't suck that bad. The PS3 doesn't look so good, but it doesn't look that horrible. The Wii looks great, but it doesn't look -that- great (these are all relatively speaking, I'm losing sleep at the thought of a Wii!).

But the pricing of the PS3 made everyone flip out. Can you imagine if they had charged more? They might as well sellout rather than do that. It sucks, but thats the way market

Yes, because Sony told people to utilize homeless people and push and shove to get a PS3.

Don't get me wrong, Sony has done a lot of bad shit, and has been very arrogant when it comes to the PS3, but this kind of behavior should be attributed expressly to the consumers. Okay, one might argue that Sony created an artificial shortage (blue laser conspiracy?), but that's no reason someone has to be an asshole. It isn't a necessary product, so the fault lies almost entirely on the consumers.

Come on, Zonk. I'm pretty anti-Sony, too, but you don't need to redirect blame for something like this. There's lots of other stuff Sony has done to be called on.

It's amusing to me that folks have no problem with somebody dropping hundreds of dollars on a console, but hiring homeless people to scalp them is some huge crime. Obviously the homeless guys felt taking some money to wait in a line was a better use of their time than whatever else they'd normally do--they made out here. As for the people who hired them, well...would you expect Steve Jobs to mow his own lawn? Why should he, if he can afford to pay someone else to do it. And as for Sony, like any company, they respond to incentives: in this case, fewer units = more demand. If you don't like it, change their incentives by not buying their shit.

First of all, I should note that I agree that it's you can't really blame Sony entirely for this. It's not as if they hired the homeless themselves.That said, it's funny to see the same fanbois that criticized MS for all of the issues surrounding the 360 launch (fights, eBay profiteering, etc.), run to Sony's defense when it happens to their console launch.

You can blame both companies for just not making enough supply to meet demand, which then causes hysteria and the problems we're seeing with the PS3 laun

That said, it's funny to see the same fanbois that criticized MS for all of the issues surrounding the 360 launch (fights, eBay profiteering, etc.), run to Sony's defense when it happens to their console launch.

Since we're talking about the japan launch here, I cannot agree with you. The Xbox 360 basically failed in Japan and was readily available in Japan on launch day. Hell, even many days later, the Xbox 360 was easy to find in Japan (even at the launch store, Tsutaya in Shibuya).

Well, I was actually referring to the US launch. There were similar issues, with lots of people lining up only to sell the 360 on eBay. I recall there was one incident where someone's console was stolen from them, right after getting it as well. Crazy demand can bring out the worst in people.

We'll see how the PS3 launch fares in a few days. (I'm pretty certain the Wii launch will be a non-event, since there are far more consoles available)

That said, it's funny to see the same fanbois that criticized MS for all of the issues surrounding the 360 launch (fights, eBay profiteering, etc.), run to Sony's defense when it happens to their console launch.

Fanboys? How about people who just think that it's absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical to blame the company? It wasn't Microsoft's fault, it's not Sony's fault, and it won't be Nintendo's fault at the Wii launch.

You can blame both companies for just not making enough supply to meet demand

Er, no, you can't blame the companies. They are/were pumping them out as quickly as they can/could. The blame here (if there is any in the first place) lies solely with the people doing it. Honestly, what are the companies supposed to do? Only begin to sell them once they have enough for EVERYONE IN THE WORLD who wants one to buy one?

If your self control is so nonexistent or your kid so spoiled (and you so whipped by them in turn) that you can't wait another month then it's your damn fault and no one else's. No one is making people buy these on ebay or making them buy them on release day. Hell, at least the scalpers and ebayers are showing intelligence and initialize so good for them.

Bollocks. The PS3 is not a critical or essential item (irrespective of what you might feel) and theres nothing illegal about scalping it. Its bloody unfair for most people but unfair is not the same as illegal.Sure its going to make the PS3 a whole lot harder to get for christmas but if you wanted one that bad there was nothing to stop you from waiting in line for a week.

The homeless people and chinese nationals made a bit from it for essentially standing in line - how is that a bad thing?

In a free market, if supply is much lower than demand, price should go up until demand is slightly below supply, at least if you are the one doing the selling. I mean really, if Joe is willing to buy my product for $100 and Bill is willing to give me $120 for it, what price should I set for it?I don't see why sony doesn't jack up the price... say a 50% increase. They could still clear 100% of their inventory. Unless there are some very good business reasons for having a very rapid initial release.

What stumps me is how these buyers are managing the homeless. You have to give a bum a wad of cash and watch him walk into the store and out of sight with it? There has to be some serious risk involved for the buyers. But I suppose they are thoroughly threatened before they are given the cash. Or they are escorted.

FTFA:

One elderly Chinese man, next in line to buy a PS3, was in a state of panic. He explained to a Bic Camera employee that his "friend" has his money, but that he is further back in the line.

I don't see anything necessarily wrong with this in principle; the consoles are a commodity that is sold for less than it's worth, people can and do buy 'em and sell 'em for a profit. And anyone that desperately wants the console to play games will shell out the dough, because they're suckers. And people that can't afford that are probably better off anyway, because they shouldn't need overpriced crap to make them happy. Mod me redundant, because I'm sure I'm repeating myself here.

What surprises me is that businessmen are getting into it. Even though they can probably quickly double or triple their investment selling the PS3s, there's a limited supply and lots of competition to get the units. Even if they make $1000 per unit they're spending a considerable amount of time to turn over a limited number of units. It seems to me they could make more money in the same amount of time trading stocks/bonds/commodities because the process is more streamlined and the volumes are higher. So for some kid looking for quick money it would surely be a good investment, I'm just surprised that it's worth the time of rich dudes.

I suppose a "scalper" can be assumed to be a "businessman" if they are well dressed.

The people who will buy these over-priced PS3 are IMHO "idiots" and they will find out they are "suckers" if they buy one and it has a problem because these machines won't have a warranty. However it is not illegal unless you don't pay your taxes on any profit you make, still the overall profit would not be that much.

This is just like concert tickets. Bands won't charge the market price for a ticket. If they did, many hard core fans couldn't afford the tickets. The problem? While some fans will stand in line "for the passion", the difference between the sale price and the marke price creates an opportunity for profiteers.

The Band promoters, like Sony, are actually trying to do a GOOD THING by pricing their tickets below what they know the market will bear.

There already is a special program for people with more money. It's called ebay. Straight out charging more at release would be fairer to more people, as only the unemployed have the time to stand in the lines.

But that wouldn't generate millions of dollars in free advertising for Sony, which is the real purpose of the "shortages".

I live in Japan and saw nothing like what is being discussed. Sure there might have been one or two isolated incidents, but this sounds like a guy trying to overblow the story way bigger than it was. It's interesting how Slashdot seems to have taken the line of reporting a single guy's observation as fact without questioning it.

Oh, they only share a portion of the blame? That's awfully magnanimous of you, but just exactly why should they take any blame? What should they have done? NOT sold a PS3 to someone because they looked shabby? Should they have insisted on some sort of contract that the customer signs that promises to not resell it?

This is just shameful. Honestly, did Zonk's mom used to beat him with a playstation or something? The constant Sony-bashing is just insane. And it's not like you have to look real far to find something they actually DID that was wrong.

You're insane -- you think that Sony should have excluded all their 'real' customers in favor of those rich enough to bid on the units instead? To what end? And for how long? The first thousand? The first million? They'll sell out the first few million units without a single unit being on a shelf for 24 hours straight... this is a police/store/social problem, not a business one.

Ugh, yeah... Sony's creating an artificial scarcity to lower their shipments to be way below demand rather then sell out of 500k or more units at launch. That whole blu-ray component shortage was just a fake excuse. It's a vast conspiracy that includes other blu-ray manufactures. Because selling less units then they can make is good for business.

every console launch since the SNES has been the same goddamn way. That's just the way the business is. Remember the DS lite? Same goddamn deal, but we didn't hear Zonk denouncing Nintendo for that, now did we? Any bets as to whether there'll be plenty of Wiis to go around next week? Think I might have a tough time getting one in the first weeks?

Next time, it would be a better idea to presale it.Sony could have had an online auction in which people could pre-buy it. It wouldn't come out until it comes out, but the people pre-buying it would proceed to pick it up at a store they would have chose when they won the auction.

This eliminates people buying it only for reaping a huge profit of reselling it. This eliminates the need to wait in line outside a store to be the first to get it. This gives Sony more profit, and can benefit the stores by still gi

p.s. yeah, I trolled. I just start to wonder isn't that constant Sony bashing on/. doesn't come out from Microsoft astrosufers. Seeing slashdotter's sentiment about Sony evil side, it is far too easy.p.s.s. consoles are dangerous, they are making you jealous and fanboyant, and all that stuff:)

I work for Sony, but this post is all mine and nothing to do with them.

Sony have taken a lot of flak lately, and it's probably been mostly justified. This, however, is the shittiest smear-job I've ever had the misfortune to read on this site. I won't be returning to the site after this post, at least once this story has run its course (so if there's any replies to this I'll answer)

How in the name of Zeus's butthole does Sony bear any responsibility whatsoever for the actions of people who aren't Sony employees? Did Sony direct these people to hire the homeless? Did Sony force anyone into doing anything, in any way? If a guy kills another guy so he can steal his PS3, will it be Sony's fault for making it? Of course not, all of these suggestions are absurd. So why attempt to shoehorn Sony into this, trying to heap more hate and blame on a company which already has so much you can fairly criticize it for?

Criticize us about rootkits, about batteries, about E3 presentations or too much hype, about perceived arrogance or copying Nintendo or making PS3 too expensive or not having enough of them, or about the quality of our hardware or software. You don't even have to make it constructive criticism, if you don't want to. But please, for the love of whatever, criticize us for those things we're at least partly responsible for! The actions of completely unrelated third parties aren't our bloody fault!

Anyway, enough from me. I've had a/. account for many years longer than I've worked for Sony, but this story has prompted me to leave the site. It's just a little bit too much unreasoning, undirected hatred directed at me from people supposedly smart enough to know better.

They decided to go to launch with an insanely popular device - this popularity mostly of their own devising, see endless hype over the last months/years - with a woefully small number of units.So that they can get the "PS3s sell out in 2 hours" headlines.So they get press coverage like this about people auctioning them.So the PS3 pricetag doesn't look so bad compared to the $1000 or more it sells for on Ebay. Hell, it's "only" $500, must be a good deal, right?:)

The comments on this story show that there's plenty of good folks who read the site. The stories and editorial crap that get added to them show that there's not too much point continuing to hang around here for reasoned debate. For the longest time it was the anti-Windows angle that annoyed me most about/. but now the daily two minute hate against me and my employer has gotten a bit old. Anyway, I won't go on about it too much, suffice to say there's better places to contribute my opinions, and in my opini

All legitimate concerns, and rightly so. But laying them at Sony's door is a bit unfair. The stores themselves, maybe the local authorities, that I could agree with. Unless this was outside a Sony store, in which case I agree it'd be Sony's fault entirely:)

Congratulations on having been here longer than me. I hope that gives you a sense of achievement. As for self-serving ignorant dribble, well... thanks, I guess. You could just have disagreed with me, but whatever.I'll throw rocks at Zonk, if it's all the same to you. Zonk's added "commentary" is the reason I won't let the door hit my arse on the way out, as you so charmingly put it. Kotaku's piece was, apart from the sections you quoted, at least a factual description of some events. I take issue with the s

Just like Microsoft did with the 360, Sony is releasing a very small amount of consoles at a price far below the market value. Sony isn't making money now. The reason is to make the PS3 seems desirable and popular for when they release the big batch just before the hollidays. Sony _wants_ headlines about PS3s selling out quickly. And what better way to get media attention than violence?

No, I'm not saying that this is all Sony's fault, or that they are juridically responsible. But I think it is a problem when companies plan for and profit from violence at product releases.

Yeah, I don't see the problem either...you end up with 3 happy people.
The homeless guy gets paid for standing in line...
The middle man makes a nice little profit...
The end user with lots of money gets one of the first units without having to stand in line (and these are probably the exact customers that sony will want to have their system - they buy all the latest games right at release instead of waiting for them to hit the bargin bin)...

Racism. Japan is a very homogeneous society, so a lot of Japanese blame an influx of foreigners for any new ills. This is perpetuated by the media "If crime goes up, it must be all the foreigners." If you want to translate this to US-speak, substitute "Chinese National" for "Black Gang Member". Of course, in that case, its obvious the person fanning the flames of the story is being a racist troll. Congratulations, Kotaku, Zonk.

This is a major but fairly invisible problem all over the world and no country can claim to be squeaky clean on this but how do you reduce or even stop it? Many people who really mean well try to throw money at the problem (varying degrees of welfare) but it basically does not work, however getting rid of welfare will mean letting people starve in the streets, which is not acceptable in first world countries.We all hear about outsourcing today but given the chance (if they could get around public opinion) m

Well 1,838 is not very close to 50,000 but it will be interesting to see what happens after the 17th Nov release in the US. There may be some people who will find they are not going to make a profit and they may even make a loss when the number of "suckers" dwindles.

One elderly Chinese man, next in line to buy a PS3, was in a state of panic. He explained to a Bic Camera employee that his "friend" has his money, but that he is further back in the line. After further investigation, these poor Chinese are not given the 60,000 yen to purchase the PS3 until minutes before their reach the registers, perhaps out of fear that some will run off with the money.